Apparently some malevolent spirit thought it'd be some peak black comedy to have me get sick for the last three days while I was trying to play a game called "Bio-Hazard Battle", or at the very least they were trying their damnedest to give me as many handicaps as possible since for whatever reason they preferred I didn't clear this shmup legitimately. I can go ahead and curse my relatives for bringing a cough with them to our thanksgiving dinner, but what's done is done and all that is left is sniffles. No harm done, except for that 15 hour period I sat in bed due to a migraine. Nope, no harm at all.....(it wasn't covid)
Anyways, I have a preference for the original title of "Crying - Sub-Life War", even if the boxart for the Japanese Mega Drive version is hilariously busy. It also dawned on me that they somehow committed a case of reverse engrish and turned "Avalon" to "Avaron". I dunno what in Sam Hill happened there, unless the person doing it had no idea that Avalon was a thing already, or assumed King Arthur had it copyrighted or something. It might have something to do with that mongoose they apparently had editing the manual....
Part of me really wishes the game didn't have a plot readily available, because there's some pretty fantastic visual storytelling and potential mystique that would've made my mind wander quite a bit and make the imagination go absolutely crazy. Who am I? The cute mosquito ship? What is that space station I'm departing from? Why am I fighting these bees that are just joyously doing their little barrel rolls? Is that a giant black earthworm coming out of that hut? Why is it flying? Where are we going?
We descend deeper into the caverns below....
We descend deeper into the oceans below....
We ascend high into the skies above....
Don't ask us how that happens.
Meanwhile the lovely sound design was made to be cranked as loudly as possible. It's something I didn't really appreciate until later, and I almost want to blame it on perhaps crap emulation on those compilations I played back then? Maybe my tastes just evolved as I became more and more of a fanatic for the use of YM2612, but damn are the basses absolutely quaking in this one. You're gonna feel that death, and that boss theme is gonna put your speakers to good use in making you feel comfortably uncomfortable.
In due time I knew it would come...the day I would finally beat Bio-Hazard Battle without save states. Just like the sickness that I defeated today, I will defeat this game.
I'm gonna do it! I'm gonna beat Crying Battle!
...
Anyways, I have a preference for the original title of "Crying - Sub-Life War", even if the boxart for the Japanese Mega Drive version is hilariously busy. It also dawned on me that they somehow committed a case of reverse engrish and turned "Avalon" to "Avaron". I dunno what in Sam Hill happened there, unless the person doing it had no idea that Avalon was a thing already, or assumed King Arthur had it copyrighted or something. It might have something to do with that mongoose they apparently had editing the manual....
Part of me really wishes the game didn't have a plot readily available, because there's some pretty fantastic visual storytelling and potential mystique that would've made my mind wander quite a bit and make the imagination go absolutely crazy. Who am I? The cute mosquito ship? What is that space station I'm departing from? Why am I fighting these bees that are just joyously doing their little barrel rolls? Is that a giant black earthworm coming out of that hut? Why is it flying? Where are we going?
We descend deeper into the caverns below....
We descend deeper into the oceans below....
We ascend high into the skies above....
Don't ask us how that happens.
Meanwhile the lovely sound design was made to be cranked as loudly as possible. It's something I didn't really appreciate until later, and I almost want to blame it on perhaps crap emulation on those compilations I played back then? Maybe my tastes just evolved as I became more and more of a fanatic for the use of YM2612, but damn are the basses absolutely quaking in this one. You're gonna feel that death, and that boss theme is gonna put your speakers to good use in making you feel comfortably uncomfortable.
In due time I knew it would come...the day I would finally beat Bio-Hazard Battle without save states. Just like the sickness that I defeated today, I will defeat this game.
I'm gonna do it! I'm gonna beat Crying Battle!
...
Reviewed on Dec 01, 2022
3 Comments
That japanese cover rules.
@cold_comfort thank you....cough drops have been a pleasant ammunition in this long reconstruction period....
@weatherby I debated buying the MD version for that art despite owning the NA one already, but couldn't really justify it and at that point my way of playing MD games on hardware was to bypass with Game Genie like it was 1995 or something. Of course, nowadays the price is like double and I play off an everdrive anyway.
@weatherby I debated buying the MD version for that art despite owning the NA one already, but couldn't really justify it and at that point my way of playing MD games on hardware was to bypass with Game Genie like it was 1995 or something. Of course, nowadays the price is like double and I play off an everdrive anyway.
Cold_Comfort
1 year ago